Nicolas Roche gets back into heavy battle at Tour de Romandie
Irish national road and time-trial champion Nicolas Roche will need his climbing legs with him this week in Switzerland as he goes into battle at the Tour de Romandie as one of BMC Racing Team's key riders.
Nicolas Roche gets back down to business today at the Tour de Romandie in Switzerland when he goes to the start-line for the 4.8-kilometre prologue that gets the race underway.
The reigning Irish national road and time-trial champion is part of a very strong-looking BMC Racing team for the five-day contest.
It features four consecutive mountain days and a hard (650-metres) individual time-trial on Sunday.
Roche hasn’t raced since Pais Vasco which ended on the 8th of April, meaning he’s been over two weeks without competitive action.
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But he’s been training hard in the interim, though he only admits to “feeling okay”.
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He’s typically done well at Romandie and it has served as a very important race for him down through his career.
His best ever stage result is third in a sprint way back in 2010 (riding for Ag2r La Mondiale) while he has never really threatened GC as he’s been at the service of others.
That will again be the case this week.
“I am here in support of Richie (Porte) who is our main man for GC but TJ (Van Garderen) is also hoping for a top GC ride,” said Roche.
But on the four days that come between the opening and closing tests against the clock there are chances for those riders going well on the climbs.
Indeed, Romandie is a climb-heavy affair again this year and Roche reckons he might get a chance on one of the days.
“Why not try something in one of the stages at some point? It’s always a hard race, not necessarily harder than other years though.
“It just looks like the weather could be a disaster and that is something I am not looking forward to.”
Also in the BMC Racing team this week is the aforementioned Porte and Van Garderen, Danilo Wyss, Daniel Oss, Michael Schar, Stefan Kung and Tom Bohli.
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